Trump's Criminal Trial Is Moving Right Along!
Added 2024-04-19 08:54:01 +0000 UTCEpisode 1024
We have a jury! The preliminaries are nearly complete in the first criminal trial of a former president in US history, and we take this opportunity to review what we know so far about the Manhattan DA's prosecution of Donald Trump for funneling hush money to Stormy Daniels three weeks before the 2016 election. How did they pick a jury so quickly? What is DA Alvin Bragg's theory of the case? Could "retweets are not endorsements" actually be a loophole to a gag order?
The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday from one of the 350 January 6th rioters charged under a 2002 statute passed by Congress in the wake of the many crimes of Enron. How did Congress's attempt to close a loophole which made it legal for some corporate criminals to destroy evidence so long as they did it by themselves open the door to the prosecution of violent insurrectionists? Is there a new, secret meaning to the word "otherwise" that only lawyers know? Is the Supreme Court really about to agree with the defendant that the words "obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding [including in Congress], or attempts to do so" clearly do not apply to him--a person clearly on video violently attempting to obstruct, influence, and/or impede an official proceeding of Congress? We also consider the potential disruption to Jack Smith's DC prosecution of Trump, of which this statute is the basis for one of the four pending charges in that case.
For the first time in U.S. history, articles of impeachment brought by the House have been dismissed by the Senate without a trial. Why was the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for doing his job in a way that Republicans didn't like (a.k.a. a "high crime" and/or "misdemeanor") so totally dead on arrival? We pay zero respects to what we can only hope will go down as by far the stupidest impeachment in the history of impeachments. (See OA bonus episode of 2/11/24 for our breakdown of the House's articles of impeachment).
Meanwhile in Florida, Fort Pierce's finest (and only) federal judge has returned fire after Trump prosecutor Jack Smith had the untrammeled nerve to notice in writing that Fort Pierce's only federal judge really sucks at her job (see OA 1016 & 1020). Fortunately for everyone however, it turns out the only person responsible for her many mistakes is--Jack Smith?
2. Defendant/Petitioner Joseph Fischer's brief in Fischer v US
3. Government's brief in Fischer v. US
4. Audio and transcript from SCOTUS oral argument in Fischer v. US (4/15/24)
Comments
Yates v. US made me lose it and meme the legal profession: https://i.imgflip.com/8nsa70.jpg
Dr. Butterscotch, Purr.HD
2024-04-23 20:07:41 +0000 UTCI gave in years ago but I still hate typing on my phone screen... miss having actual keys.
Matt is a movie star ask him about The Gamers
2024-04-23 01:09:43 +0000 UTCtotally fair read and I'm not here to change your mind, but just speaking for myself as a defense-minded person who is pretty down on caging people generally I don't want to see Joseph Fischer sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his objectively minimal involvement in 1/6. SG Prelogar claimed that prosecutors had reserved this charge for people who showed a higher level of intent, but if it were up to me I'd be reserving it for the really scary militia types who are on video entering the building in a terrifyingly organized way and anyone who had things like zip ties or other evidence of participation in a bigger plot on them. IMO Fischer was overcharged, and that suggests to me that he wasn't the only one. I don't necessarily want to go easy on people who chose to participate in the most serious attack on our democracy in many generations but that doesn't mean we can't also try to keep it proportionate. The other charges are more facially appropriate to the facts, people are doing real time on them, and a federal misdemeanor record is no small thing. Also so far as I know (and I am always ready to be wrong) there were no defendants solely charged with this offense. That would give me a little more pause, but I would assume prosecutors were structuring these charges in anticipation of challenges to the unique application of this statute.
Matt Cameron
2024-04-22 21:16:55 +0000 UTChell yeah! I've literally never owned a smartphone that didn't have a physical keyboard and I knew I couldn't be the only one still out there. the Priv and the Key2 were two of the best phones ever made anywhere and I would still be using a Key2 today if my network (or any network) would support them. The Titan Slim is a pale shadow, but we take what we can get in this life and it's still a great deal even with the inferior specs and shitty camera. Everyone in my life thinks I'm out of my mind to be sacrificing so much just for plastic keys, but they're the ones who are poking away at a piece of glass so here we are. Keep the faith brother!
Matt Cameron
2024-04-22 21:05:30 +0000 UTCMy man mat. I used a palm treo before going to blackberry, then I got a NEC terrain, a BlackBerry Q10, both android blackberry's which I used a key2 red all the way until last year . I can guess that you are using a Unihertz titan slim now.
Dreadsen
2024-04-22 16:48:41 +0000 UTCOH AND, you know what also fits under tampering with an official process??? Stalking jurors, fuckerizing around on social media trying to doxx them, and making them so intimidated by the defendant's army of single-brain-celled organisms that they can't even finish jury duty. Aren't the defence literally committing the crime against which they're defending the defendant and why isn't this a free pass for the prosecution???? It's like if you're on trial for murder and your lawyers openly run around murdering jurors until the spares get the message. Totes innocent your honor!! 1 second, just gonna pop juror #10 she looks a bit too anti-murdery for our liking. See you after lunch with her replacement
Bald Weasels Scrotal Manscaping
2024-04-21 12:30:22 +0000 UTCWow I really don't understand like any of this. 1. Re: fish. Ok, so a fish isn't a thing. When those guys destroyed the quote unquote fish, they were actually destroying the intangible philosophical idea of piscine whateverthefuck. So... did the prosecution get to move on to the "otherwise" bit? If so who cares whether fish are a thing? If not, what the fuck? 2. Re: Trump. If the defense can argue that the "otherwise" bit doesn't apply to storming the capitol because it's about evidence in investigations, doesn't that mean the whole of 1512 is about evidence in investigations? Shouldn't the discussion be about whether 1512 is itself applicable at all, and whether any other cases about not-evidence-stuff have been thrown out or successfully prosecuted? Why is the discussion about the specific wording when it seems like it should be about the whole statute? I am so confused!!
Bald Weasels Scrotal Manscaping
2024-04-21 12:13:55 +0000 UTCThanks for that episode! I hate to be the negatron on this one, but I think the Fischer case is really bad. And way more consequential than you seem to suggest. ~ 350 rioters are charged with 1512(c)(2) (that's 1/4 off all defendants) ~50 cases that went to sentencing already with 1512(c)(2) being the only felony. That seems huge. I'm also not certain the Trump charges won't be affected. The question presented in Fischer is: 'whether 1512(c)(2) includes acts unrelated to investigations and evidence'. If it's only about evidence the joint session of congress might not be covered at all.
KaryllTheWarlock
2024-04-20 23:15:57 +0000 UTCBrooklyn 99, S02E06 at 7:50 (Netflix version).
Andy the Dandy
2024-04-20 12:42:05 +0000 UTCIt's very clearly not that relevant here but there's a historical reason the secret service doesn't like to be called SS ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel
KaryllTheWarlock
2024-04-20 08:31:34 +0000 UTCIf the system is set up to protect defendants right to a speedy trial, how well will the system operate when what’s in the best interest of the defendant is the opposite? The system would also be set up with the intention to combat corrupt/rogue judges to provide mechanisms to prevent and/or overrule incorrect judge decisions. Honestly in my opinion so far it seems like the system is working to correct her most egregious unjust/incorrect decisions and prevent worse ones (such as being overruled upon review a couple times and conceding to jack smith’s unnecessary teaching of the law when required) but the system has fewer levers to pull for the specific situation of this rogue judge with this defendant wanting the opposite of the normal ideal timeline. Schedule wise, the corruption is coming from the opposite side than the system would have foreseen. Substance wise the defendant hasn’t won yet and it seems Jack is aware and addressing any decision with double jeopardy implications with threats of preemptive appeals so far. However, this is all just my take and I do worse on bar questions than if i closed my eyes and picked b every time.
Fort Teaser
2024-04-20 03:03:53 +0000 UTCAh ok i pictured a lot of written answers and written responses. That makes sense that it’s what the reporters hear in person, not documents they have access to. Thanks!
Fort Teaser
2024-04-20 02:43:06 +0000 UTCOkay.. the more I hear about cannon and the more just.. I feel like there /has/ to be some way to get her some oversight. It feels intensely wrong to my core that she’s over here eating the crayons and making mistakes that I feel a law student might feel embarrassed to have made, and we just have to smile and nod along. All this only made worse by the fact that if she does torpedo the case in a way that double jeapordy applies there still looks like there will be no real consequences for her.
Jinx Greymoon
2024-04-19 22:35:35 +0000 UTCI initially read that as 'punishment is no teeth' and have found myself in a moral bind of absolutely supporting that for this guy and grossed out in all other situations. 😂
lauren
2024-04-19 15:38:26 +0000 UTCProbably. I've heard it said the SS would love having a prisoner under their protection, because it'd make their job trivially easy; they know exactly where he is and who he's in contact with every minute of every day. I assume they'd just coordinate with the warden/admin to vet any visitors he gets.
Chris Conley
2024-04-19 15:26:54 +0000 UTCApplying the logic of Yates consistently, destroying a human (rather than fish) corpse to cover up a crime wouldn't violate the statue. It's doing backflips around the meaning of tangible object to permit destruction of evidence of certain categories of crimes.
Gmork
2024-04-19 15:23:10 +0000 UTCDo some of the Supreme Court justices get stoned before oral arguments? Because that’s the only way I can see making the “We’re just gonna use ‘otherwise’ to replace the verbs and the nouns” argument.
Pixel Mountain (aka Rachel)
2024-04-19 14:44:51 +0000 UTCYates was such a terrible decision. The fish in question was evidence of a crime, and it was destroyed solely and specifically to conceal evidence of that crime. The decision largely came down to, "this is the kind of crime that my buddies and I might get caught committing, so clearly it can't apply to us."
Gmork
2024-04-19 13:13:24 +0000 UTCI'm actually curious about how they would imprison him. He's got a secret service detail. Do they just hang out outside his cell?
Unlikable Internet Goblin
2024-04-19 13:07:09 +0000 UTCFor a more direct analog analogy to a re-tweet: let's say, as Trump walks out of the courtroom, a supporter shouts something horrible about the jurors and Trump points at them saying "What they said". I assume this would count as violating a gag order.
Why do podcasters say moron that later
2024-04-19 13:02:14 +0000 UTCIf Trump were sentenced to home confinement, how would that be enforced? They put an ankle monitor on him and all he has to do is blatantly defy it just as he does everything else. Unless the consequence of violating home confinement is prison, the punishment has no teeth.
Deanna T.
2024-04-19 12:17:04 +0000 UTCThe only answers we know are the ones that the media thought were interesting enough to report while they were sitting there as the potential jurors were interviewed by the parties during jury selection. There is no publicly-available record of the proceedings and the jury questionnaires themselves will not be made public, so our information is only as good as what reporters who are there choose to share.
Matt Cameron
2024-04-19 11:43:57 +0000 UTCI thought Matt said we’ll never know if a juror listed OA, but then he seemed to know a lot of answers. Are the answers public but anonymous? Is it only the answers from jurors that ended up being seated that are public? What’s the deal
Fort Teaser
2024-04-19 11:00:43 +0000 UTC
